Terp Fall 2019

B R I G H T F U T U R E FO R 3 0 -Y E A R - O L D S O L A R C A R 8

AMID ABSURDITIES, T E R P F I N I S H E S L AT E H U S B A N D ’S L A ST B O O K 28

A N A R T I ST ’S C O L D, HARD EXHIBIT 34

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“ FASTER,

SAFER, CHEAPER” HOW A U MD DRONE COULD R ESHAPE THE U. S. ORGA N TR ANSPLANT SYSTEM PG 22

HAVING A BLAST AT HOMECOMING

Fireworks explode in fiery color over McKeldin Library at Terp Carnival the night before 2018’s Homecoming game. Find the lineup for this year’s celebration, Oct. 27–Nov. 3, at homecoming.umd.edu.

Photo by Edwin Remsberg Photography

ON THE MALL

ALUMNI

NEWS

06 Homeownership Program Builds Greater College Park Community 06 UMD Acts to Prevent Mold in Residence Halls 07 Letters From a Science Giant

40 42 43 45 46 48

Alumni Association Deep in “The Boondocks” Class Notes Wind in Their Sails A Jarring Success From the Archives

CAMPUS LIFE

08 Born to Sun 10 “My Journey Mattered” 11 Remembering a Residential Revolution 12 A Most Sensational, Inspirational, Celebrational, Muppetational Show 14 Championing Mental Health 15 Sticking Points EXPLORATIONS

16 17 18 19 19 20 21

CONTENTS 2

T E R P. U M D . E D U

The Nazi Reactor That Wasn’t Produce Safety a Zap Away?

Hardcore Collector Inclusive Care Toxic Tradeoff in Pollution Control Battle Drain Gain The Big Question

Piece of CASE Terp magazine received a bronze award among general interest magazines in the 2019 Circle of Excellence Awards sponsored by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE).

Judges cited the “great revamp” in design and the “standout” cover story on a mass shooting that killed five, including three Terps.

FEATURES

ONLINE

“Hamilton”: The Ultimate Teachable Moment?

That’s what Richard Bell, associate professor of history, calls the smash hit musical as he travels the country to parse its accuracy and examine its modern ideals.

—

My, What Big Teeth It Had Visitors to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History can now see eye-to-eye with a model of a giant shark that lived up to 20 million years ago, thanks in part to an entomology instructor.

—

Sounds of the Semester’s Start 22

“Faster, Safer, Cheaper” A woman’s lifesaving new kidney arrived by a drone developed by UMD engineers, and the nation’s transplant system may never be the same.

BY CHRIS CARROLL

28

Absurdity of Her Days A year after her husband was killed in a mass shooting, Andrea Chamblee ’83 navigates grief by finishing his final book and taking a public role in gun-reform activism.

BY LIAM FARRELL

“ H A M I LT O N ” P H O T O B Y J O A N M A R C U S

34

A Cold, Hard Act Using sensors in the Arctic, a professor hoped to visually depict the ice melting for an audience a continent away—until climate change itself disrupted his plan.

BY SALA LEVIN ‘ 10

It’s hot times at Early Week, when Mighty Sound of Maryland members come together for an intensive band boot camp.

Find new stories every week at TERP.UMD.EDU.

D I S COV E R N E W KNOWLEDGE

Fearless Ideas Every issue of Terp features examples of our students’ and faculty’s discovery of new knowledge. In this issue, we further highlight those efforts with a “ .” We do the same in other issues about efforts to inspire Maryland pride, transform the student experience and turn imagination into innovation.

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FROM THE EDITOR

i was a super-shy, hiding-underfrizzy-hair college freshman when I bravely waded through a lake of pizza boxes, crumpled papers and old socks to watch “The Princess Bride” in my neighbor Jeremy’s (stunningly messy) room.

My formerly all-women’s dorm had previously switched to single-sex floors, and that new world of gender mixing for me—who only had sisters— led to spontaneous co-ed road trips, arm-waving debates over politics and Prince, and weekly gatherings in the lounge to see some new TV series called “The Simpsons.”

That was 30 years ago this fall, and I took those moments for granted.

But they wouldn’t have been possible at Maryland for a previous generation of women. Men and women weren’t just housed separately; women were required to follow draconian rules such as sign-ins and -outs, 10 p.m.

Monday curfews, weekly room inspections and sunbathing restrictions.

That changed in 1969, when Hagerstown Hall became the first co-ed residence hall on campus, leading to the unfurling of a “doin’ it together” banner and what the Terrapin yearbook reported as totally normal blended study sessions, parties and card games. We mark the half-century milestone on page 11 with memories from residents that eventful year.

Another story in this issue celebrates a groundbreaking Terp for other women on campus: Elaine Johnson Coates ’59. Amid insults and isolation in a period of brazen racism, she persevered to become the first AfricanAmerican woman to earn a bachelor’s degree at Maryland.

Among other female Terp heroes, we look at the remarkable record of Cathy Reese ’98, who coached the women’s lacrosse team to a fifth NCAA title in May, and the resilience of Andrea Chamblee ’83, who’s fighting grief and honoring her husband, killed in a mass shooting, by finishing his final book and becoming a very public gun-reform advocate.

As I write this, the sensational U.S. women’s national soccer team— led by former Terps assistant coach Jill Ellis—has just recaptured the World Cup and resurrected talk about equal pay for equal (or, let’s face it, better) work.

A half-century ago, when UMD women had to get approval to even leave their residence halls overnight, would anyone have predicted that female soccer players could push forward a national discussion on gender equality?

Inconceivable.

Lauren Brown University Editor

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T E R P. U M D . E D U

Publisher JACKIE LEWIS Vice President, University Relations

Advisers JOEL R. SELIGMAN Associate Vice President, Strategic Communications MARGARET HALL Executive Director, Creative Strategies

Magazine Staff LAUREN BROWN University Editor JOHN T. CONSOLI Creative Director VALERIE MORGAN Art Director CHRIS CARROLL ANNIE DANKELSON LIAM FARRELL SALA LEVIN ’10 Writers JASON A. KEISLING Designer STEPHANIE S. CORDLE Photographer GAIL RUPERT M.L.S. ’10 Photography Archivist EMMA HOWELLS Photography Assistant JAGU CORNISH Production Manager DAN NOVAK M.JOUR ’19 Graduate Assistant LINDSEY COLLINS ‘20 DANIEL OYEFUSI ’19 CHRIS WRIGHT ‘19 Interns

EMAIL terpfeedback@umd.edu ONLINE terp.umd.edu NEWS umdrightnow.umd.edu FACEBOOK.COM/ UnivofMaryland TWITTER.COM/UofMaryland VIMEO.COM/umd YOUTUBE.COM/UMD2101 The University of Maryland, College Park is an equal opportunity institution with respect to both education and employment.

University policies, programs and activities are in conformance with pertinent federal and state laws and regulations on non-discrimination regarding race, color, religion, age, national origin, political affiliation, gender, sexual orientation or disability.

COVER Baltimore photo by aimintang for Getty Images; drone photo

by John T. Consoli

INTERPLAY

Where Are They Now?

30 Years Later, We’re Still Looking, Mostly WHEN TERP FEATURED this photo from a

1989 football game on the back cover of the Spring 2019 issue, we didn’t know who these mullet-rocking, baggy sweatshirt-wearing students were. So we asked you.

We tried crowdsourcing the IDs via social media and we caught up with just one: Allyson Lindie Flannery ’90. Now married 27 years

A Start to Healing

Feeling Like an Alum

Love this story. Thanks for doing the research and bringing back the darker chapter in our U.S. history. Those were brave nurses in those days, and they served the patients and the country with honor.

I have experienced many bad things due to heavy political and economic atmosphere in Turkey since 2015, and I even sometimes forgot that once I was a part of UMD. Many thanks because you always sent me Terp magazine. Now I am reading the Spring 2019 magazine feeling that I am an alumnus. I am one of the Terps. Hope to see you guys in the future.

—DR. OWEN LEE ’75, VIA TERP ONLINE NEWARK, OHIO

Thank you for sharing this very important story with us! It is crucial we not forget these parts of our history.

—JANE VILLANUEVA ’02 ELLICOTT CITY, MD., VIA TERP ONLINE

with three kids and living in New Jersey, she transferred to UMD from C.W. Post, studied radio/television and film and was a proud member of Delta Delta Delta.

“Pretty much every week, I would do the tailgate with the sorority,” she says. “I loved being at a school where they did have a big football program.”—AD

–HALIM ILTAS M.A. ’05 IZMIR, TURKEY

Correction: The name of Challenger astronaut Judith Resnik Ph.D. ’77 was misspelled in the Spring 2019 issue. We regret the error.

WRITE TO US We love to hear from readers. Send your feedback, insights, compliments— and, yes, complaints—to terpfeedback@umd.edu or

Terp magazine Office of Strategic Communications 7736 Baltimore Ave. College Park, MD 20742

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ON THE MALL

NEWS

Homeownership Program Builds Greater College Park Community

UMD Acts to Prevent Mold in Residence Halls FROM INSTALLING HUMIDITY SENSORS to

Humidity sensors were placed in Elkton

replacing windows and roofs, the University

and Bel Air halls as part of a pilot program

of Maryland completed more than 100

to have Residential Facilities staff monitor

projects in 19 residence halls this spring

temperature and humidity data.

and summer to prevent outbreaks of mold.

The work, overseen by the Department

“The safety, health, and well-being of each and every resident is a matter of

A PROGRAM ENCOURAGING people who

of Residential Facilities, follows record-

utmost concern for the Departments of

work in College Park to live here turned

setting rain and high temperatures and

Resident Life and Residential Facilities,”

a corner—and another key—this summer.

humidity in 2018 that led to mold growth

says Andrea Crabb, director of Residential

in campus housing and prompted UMD

Facilities. “We strive to provide a quality

the College Park City-University

to move all residents of Elkton Hall last

living environment that supports commu-

Partnership Homeownership Program,

fall to local hotels during cleanup and

nity development and academic success.”

which provides a $15,000 incentive for

remediation.

The 50th house was sold under

full-time UMD and municipal employees

Two independent engineering and

Outside of capital projects, UMD instituted new training for staff on how to

to buy a home inside city limits. There,

industrial hygiene firms were consultants

recognize and identify mold, as well as how

they strengthen the sense of community

in the new initiative, which included

to safely remove it.

as they spend evenings and weekends

bringing in commercial-grade dehumidifi-

taking advantage of the new amenities

ers, waterproofing foundations, upgrading

this fall to inform students living in

in Greater College Park, a $2 billion

air-conditioning fan coil units, removing

residence halls about any new equipment

public-private investment to revitalize

closet doors to improve air flow and

in their rooms and how to help prevent

the Baltimore Avenue corridor.

reinsulating pipes.

mold and mildew.

Resident Life also launched a campaign

A growing number of purchasers are helping stabilize neighborhoods, improve the city’s economy and reduce traffic, says Eric Olson, executive director of the College Park City-University Partnership.

“They become ambassadors,” he says. “They tell others about the farmers markets and places to shop, the great friends their kids have made, the parks and playgrounds, and all the other things College Park has to offer.”

Program participant Gene Ferrick, director of operations in the College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences, recently traded a half-hour commute from Bowie for a quick walk to his office.

“I’m excited about turning in my parking pass,” Ferrick says.—CC

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P H O T O B Y J O H N T. C O N S O L I

Letters From a Science Giant

$300K Sale of Hawking Correspondence Funds Gravitational Physics Endowment ear charlie,” each letter begins.

They go on to talk about kids, explore recent theories and even ask about reimbursement for a trip to the University of Maryland. Job references are also a big topic—typical for correspondence between two academics.

Far from typical was who penned them: Stephen Hawking, the brilliant physicist who became a popular author and international symbol of perseverance in the face of his crippling Lou Gehrig’s disease. Hawking died in March 2018.

The letters—donated by their recipient, UMD physics Professor Emeritus Charles Misner—were sold in May in a Christie’s online auction, and the nearly $300,000 in proceeds founded an endowment to support research in gravitational physics, in which both Hawking and Misner specialized.

Hawking wrote the letters between 1967 and 1970. The two hit it off while the American scientist was on a fellowship at the University of Cambridge. Soon after, Hawking stayed at Misner’s home while visiting UMD, where Misner’s research group was immersed in the theoretical study of gravitation, and UMD physics Professor Joseph Weber was leading a charge to experimentally detect gravitational waves in space-time.

“

D

Last year, when the Department of Physics was seeking funds for a memorial to Weber—who failed in his career-long quest, but laid the critical groundwork for a later experiment that would succeed— Misner remembered the letters. In his overstuffed office, departmental staff finally turned up the four used to found the Weber Endowment for Gravitational Physics.—cc

UMD to Lead $175M Institute on PlanetPeople Interaction

coupled system.

Studies (CISESS), the nationwide

improve weather and climate

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND

consortium of academic and

forecasts and build resilience to

will host a new cooperative

nonprofit institutions will be led

extreme events. The researchers

research institute to expand

by UMD and NC State University

will also monitor the oceans, the

our understanding of how the

and is funded by a five-year, $175

atmosphere and the cryosphere

atmosphere, ocean, land and

million award from the National

to inform environmental decision-

biosphere components of Earth

Oceanic and Atmospheric

making.—CC

L E T T E R S P H O T O B Y J O H N T. C O N S O L I ; H A W K I N G P H O T O B Y T E R R Y S M I T H / G E T T Y I M A G E S ; M I S N E R P H O T O C O U R T E SY O F U N I V E R S I T Y A R C H I V E S ; I L L U S T R AT I O N BY M A R G A R E T H A L L

interact with each other and with human activities in a single, Called the Cooperative Institute for Satellite Earth System

Administration (NOAA).

For example, CISESS researchers will use environmental data from satellites to develop more accurate products that help NOAA

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CAMPUS LIFE

Born to Sun

Clark School to Welcome Home a History-Making Solar Car early 30 years ago, the car of the future looked like a cross between a horseshoe crab, a retro flying saucer and an airplane wing.

And it was (gently) gunning for the lead in a low-speed yet high-tech cross-country race.

This was the Pride of Maryland, a vehicle designed and built by some 60 UMD engineering students to compete in the 1990 GM Sunrayce USA, a challenge to university students to create and race a solar-powered car. Yet that 1,644mile adventure was only the start of a wild decades-long, continent-crossing journey that may finally end soon, when the car parks at a permanent home on campus.

Building the car “seemed like it went on 24 hours a day,” says Maureen Williams ’91. “It was a nonstop process.”

The team, led by mechanical engineering Professor David Holloway, developed a lightweight, aerodynamic vehicle, then tested it in the university’s Glenn L. Martin Wind Tunnel. The result was sleek and tapered, with solar panels where the horseshoe crab’s tail would be, and measured 20 feet long, 6 feet wide and 3 feet tall. The car could reach upwards of 40 mph on sunlight alone, and more by using the car’s battery.

N

Yoke-style steering wheel,

which had to be removed with driver’s entry and exit

The team qualified for the race by taking the car for a spin on the Daytona International Speedway; once it made the 32-car cut, the students set out from Orlando on July 9, 1990. From there, the team drove through Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Indiana, Ohio and finished in Michigan.

“GM had made a big push to make sure everybody knew the cars were coming, so every stop we made … there were hundreds and hundreds of people, if not thousands,” says Williams.

Stephen Brady ’89 recalls one day when the team was arriving in Indianapolis amid a crush of commuters. “We used our Washington, D.C., rush-hour skills to get ahead and ended up coming in first place.”

The team placed a respectable third in the Sunrayce and earned a place in another race in Australia, where the car finished seventh. After that, the Pride competed in Japan, then retired from its racing days, emerging briefly to appear in the 1993 inaugural parade for President Bill Clinton.

The car spent some time in an automotive museum in Tennessee, then sat in storage at a campus engineering lab until 2002, when the space was cleared out and the team members returned to rescue and rehab it. Since then, the

High-efficiency electric motor

2,300

aerospace-grade solar cells

Maximum power of

1,500 watts in peak sunlight

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P H O T O B Y J O H N T. C O N S O L I

TIMES TO SHINE

The A. James Clark School of Engineering celebrates its 125th anniversary this year and has plenty of milestones to celebrate.

Pride has led the unsettled life of a vagabond. It stayed for a while in the engineering manufacturing building until a renovation led to its discovery amid construction debris. Then it parked at Brady’s parents’ garage in Gaithersburg before landing in 2009 at the Baltimore Museum of Industry, where it hung from the ceiling.

Returning to the museum in 2018, Brady was surprised to find the car had vanished from its spot. He learned that it was in a Baltimore Avenue building owned by the engineering department; again, he took the car back to his parents’ garage to spruce it up. In the spring, the Pride was featured at Maryland Day and will soon live in one of the Clark School’s buildings.

“We hope that those who see it will be inspired by the innovative design and engineering that went into building this car and build on the success of one of the first competition teams from the department and the college,” says Bala Balachandran, Minta Martin Professor and chair of the mechanical engineering department.

Williams also hopes the Pride will have a long life on campus. “We won’t let this thing die,” she says.—sl

1894

The first engineering curriculum is established with a The solar-powered Pride of Maryland (above), designed and built by students, shown here with then Vice President Al Gore, placed third in the 1990 GM Sunrayce USA.

four-year program in mechanical engineering

1908

A building—now known as Taliaferro Hall—is erected to house civil, electrical and mechanical

1928

engineering departments

Evelyn B. Harrison ’32 becomes the first woman admitted to the College of Engineering 1949 1951

Hiram Whittle, an engineering major, becomes

Glenn L. Martin Wind Tunnel begins operations

the first African-American undergraduate student at UMD 1984

Electrical engineering alumna Judith Resnik Ph.D. ’77 chosen for the space shuttle

Challenger mission 1992

Length: 19.7 feet Width: 6.6 feet Height: 3.2 feet

68 mph top speed

Weight:

Neutral Buoyancy

350 pounds

Research Facility,

Gross weight with driver:

one of only two in

program

the country, opens

established

550 pounds

1994

Women in Engineering

2013

A student team sets a world record

2017

for human-powered

A. James & Alice B.

flight, as helicopter

Clark Foundation invests

they designed and built

nearly $220 million in

hovers for 97 seconds

the Clark School and university

I N S E T: P R I D E O F M A RY L A N D P H OTO CO U RT ESY O F U N I V E R S I T Y A RC H I V ES ; H A R R I S O N P H O T O C O U R T E S Y O F 1 9 3 2 R E V E I L L E ; N E U T R A L B U O Y A N C Y, H U M A N - P O W E R E D H E L I C O P T E R , W O M E N I N E N G I N E E R I N G P H O T O S B Y J O H N T. C O N S O L I ; T A L I A F E R R O H A L L A N D W I N D T U N N E L P H OTOS CO U RT ESY O F U N I V E R S I T Y A RC H I V ES

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ON THE MALL

CAMPUS LIFE

“My Journey Mattered”

UMD Honors First Black Woman to Complete Bachelor’s Degree

n fall 1955, freshman Elaine Johnson Coates would sometimes be studying in her Caroline Hall room when a neighbor would knock on the door and say she had a call on the hallway phone. She’d pick up the receiver and hear a string of vile insults. The message was clear: She wasn’t welcome at Maryland.

“I ate alone, I walked alone, I was in class alone,” says Coates ’59.

Coates back then was one of the first seven African-American students allowed to live on campus. Four years later, she was the only one to graduate, becoming the first African-American woman to earn a bachelor’s degree at the university. This spring, the Alumni Association honored the retired social worker and educator with a new award for an alumnus who has made a significant and sustained contribution that fosters diversity and inclusion—an award named in her honor.

The daughter of a railroad porter and a domestic worker, Coates grew up in Baltimore and went to the segregated Frederick Douglass High School. After the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education ruling in 1954, Coates decided she wanted to go to the University of Maryland “because I could.”

Her school counselor refused to write Coates a letter of recommendation and suggested she find a job; at her mother’s urging, Coates wrote her own letter, ultimately earning a four-year scholarship.

Caroline Hall “was very lonely at first,” she says. Her roommate, a high school classmate, “couldn’t take the pressure” and left partway through the year. “Some girls would speak to me in the dorm, but when they got outside, I guess because of peer pressure, it

I

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T E R P. U M D . E D U

was a very different thing.”

Coates also found unequal treatment in classrooms. When she’d compare test results with fellow residents, she’d find that “we could have written the exact same thing, and that person would have an A- and I’d have a C-.”

Still, Coates persisted. “I had a plan and I had a purpose,” she says. “I wanted to do something that had never been done in my family. … I wanted to make my family and my church proud of me, and those whose shoulders I was standing on were very strong.”

She planned on being a teacher but didn’t get a placement after graduating from the College of Education; instead, she went into

social work, and worked in that field and teaching throughout her career. Her two children—a personal trainer and an OB/GYN— also graduated from Maryland.

In addition to being welcomed back to campus for her honor at the Maryland Awards, Coates was also invited to address the Class of 2019 at Commencement in May. “I stand upon this podium and look out at the diversity in the beautiful faces of this graduating class,” she said, “and it tells me that my journey mattered.”— sl

P H OTO BY ST E P H A N I E S. CO R D L E ; I N S E T P H OTO CO U RT ESY O F 1 9 59 T E R RA P I N

Remembering a Residential Revolution Terps Look Back on 50th Anniversary of UMD’s First Co-ed Hall ONLY 50 YEARS AGO, curfews barred

female undergraduates from venturing outside their residence halls after midnight on weekdays and required them to sign in and out.

It was the era of the Vietnam War, Woodstock and the moon landing, yet allowing men and women to live in the same building was still called “far out.”

But in Fall 1969, Hagerstown Hall swung open the doors to the women’s lib movement and became the first

down the road to eternal fire and

co-ed residence hall at Maryland.

damnation.”

The idea came from Dr. Roy Eskow ’68, M.A. ’71, then a resident assistant in Cumberland Hall, who drafted the

But the “experiment,” as it was called, was a hit.

“Fears and anxieties that parents

proposal to house men and women

had never materialized,” says Eskow,

in opposite wings on six of the eight

who served as a Hagerstown RA.

floors in Hagerstown Hall, then a

“Students treated each other with the

women’s dormitory.

same respect they did anywhere else

The administration signed off, with a few conditions: Male applicants

on campus.”

So popular was the concept that

needed upperclassman status, at least

trailers by Fraternity Row, formerly all-

a 2.0 GPA, proof of interest in student

male, also allowed women for the first

activities and a recommendation from

time that year as well. A mere plywood

their previous hall.

board separated the genders.

Some parents voiced concerns,

A handful of other buildings sought

while The Diamondback sarcastically

co-ed status the next fall, and now, the

suggested in an editorial that the

all-female Cecil is UMD’s only remain-

change “would be just another step

ing single-sex residence hall.—AD

P H OTO CO U RT ESY O F T H E D I A M O N D BAC K / M A RY L A N D M E D I A

“I participated in antiwar (protests), civil rights, things of that nature.

Demonstrations were so massive on campus, at one point we were occupied by the National Guard. It was very stimulating to converse with friends and women with regard to their feelings with all that was happening.”

JAMES SCHERLIS ’72

“The floor that I was on was still all women. I was very much into the whole hippie thing. I walked around in my army jacket and jeans and moccasins.

Times were changing. In the ’60s, things became a lot freer. The boy-girl relationships were becoming freer.

Ideologies as far as sex were changing.

This just went along with those changes that we were seeing.”

DR. BARBARA STEINBERG ’72

“I lived in Hagerstown Hall all four years. My junior year is when it went co-ed. My roommate and I decided we wanted a room right behind the elevator. There were only two rooms there—we called it ‘the groove.’ Our room was the only one with a wall shared with the guys on the other side. I enjoyed living in Hagerstown, both when it was all-female and when it was co-ed. I think I liked it better when it was co-ed.”

RUTH POLINSKY ROTHSCHILD ’71

“I grew up with no sisters. It was neat to interact with girls as friends at all hours. That was really an eyeopener for me—bathrobes and curlers.

Academically, socially, Hagerstown was just great for me.”

MIKE MELIKER ’71, M.A. ’74

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CAMPUS LIFE

A Most Sensational, Inspirational, Celebrational, Muppetational Show Exhibit Explores Henson’s UMD Student Work WHO WAS JIM HENSON before the Muppets exploded in popularity? What

were his artistic passions? And how does the artwork he created before his 1960 graduation connect to his later artistic vision?

“Inspired! Jim Henson at Maryland,” a yearlong exhibit on display through May at the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library (MSPAL), aims to answer those questions.

“I had this idea to see if we can go back to that time and see what was coming,” says Vincent Novara, curator for Special Collections in Performing Arts at MSPAL. Here are a few of the images and pieces that suggest how Henson’s time at Maryland shaped his future—and, probably, your own childhood.—SL

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This 1957 silk screen, titled “Conceit,” was one of a trio illustrating emotions that Henson created after taking a silk-screen printing class at UMD. The color palette is Muppet-esque, notes Novara, and so is the absurdity of the figures working against themselves and each other. Henson “tried a lot of two-dimensional mediums to express ideas like this, but I think in the end he really needed the three dimensions puppetry gave him,” says Karen Falk, archives director and historian for the Jim Henson Company.

I M AG E S CO U RT E SY O F T H E J I M H E N S O N CO M PA N Y

In this 1956 photo, Henson poses with Sam—the star of “Sam and Friends,” the local TV show Henson created with his future wife, Jane Nebel ’55—in front of his parents’ University Park home. Sam was an early iteration of a Muppet, and Kermit the Frog evolved from the lizardlike puppet Kermit that appeared on “Sam and Friends” during its 1955–61 run.

Jim and Jane Henson, shown with the cast of “Sam and Friends,” met during a puppetry class his freshman year and soon became personal and professional partners. By 1960, the two were “firmly established in D.C. as local television personalities,” says Falk.

Henson, who ran a silkscreen poster business out of the Stamp Student Union, created this 1958 silk screen advertising a campus concert at a time when “rock and roll didn’t have a visual identity yet,” says Novara. He adds that the kinetic energy and vibrant colors presage the sometimes-chaotic energy of the Muppets’ antics.

TO P P H OTO BY D E L A N K E R S

The hairy legs on this 1958 silkscreen promoting a UMD production of “The Teahouse of the August Moon” were “a motif that clearly tickled him, because they show up in some of his projects in the ’60s,” says Falk. The lighthearted fishout-of-water theme was one that also appeared in Henson’s later work.

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CAMPUS LIFE

Championing Mental Health Title-Winning Soccer Player Focuses on New Goals After Battling Depression

hen the terps men’s soccer team upset No. 2 Indiana to advance to the NCAA championship last December, the underdogs huddled in a jubilant embrace on the field.

Paul Bin, though, crashed to the ground alone and wept.

To the senior forward, the victory was also a highly personal one after a battle with depression led him to leave the team, the country and the sport. Now, as the team defends its first national title in a decade, he’s sharing his story to shine a light on mental health issues, especially

W

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in athletics.

Born in South Korea, Bin moved to London with his family when he was 6 and came to the U.S. as a teen to play for Real Salt Lake, a top youth academy. Maryland was the first of his college visits, and the program wowed him so much that he canceled the rest of his trips.

After Bin arrived on campus in Fall 2015, though, Head Coach Sasho Cirovski noticed that something was off.

“He was missing some classes. His smile had sort of gone away,” says Cirovski. “I knew that there was something going on, but it wasn’t until much later that I really understood the depth of the problem.”

Bin had suffered from depression during his senior year of high school, which escalated to the point that he considered jumping from a hotel balcony to end his life. He thought the change of scenery at UMD would help, but soon found himself losing motivation, holing up in his room and crying every night.

Sitting on McKeldin Mall around 11 one night, he realized he needed help.

He called then-athletic trainer Matt

McKelvey, who, to Bin’s surprise, picked up and calmed him down. Not long after that call, Bin received another—from Cirovski, asking to meet in his office.

“He just asked me, ‘Do you have anything to tell me?’” Bin says. “My right leg started shaking uncontrollably, and I didn’t even answer him—I just started bawling.”

Cirovski and other staff reassured him and helped set up meetings with psychologists and counselors, but Bin didn’t feel a connection. After a long talk with his family, he decided to return home to South Korea.

What was supposed to be a semester turned into a year. Bin met three times a week with a mental health specialist, who was able to help him open up. Terp coaches and players stayed in touch, letting him know he’d be welcomed back, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever play soccer again.

That changed when the FIFA U-20 World Cup came to South Korea in spring 2017. Eryk Williamson, Bin’s UMD teammate, was on the U.S. roster and invited him to watch. He was hesitant at first, but as he took in the match, his right leg started shaking again.

P H O T O S B Y J O H N T. C O N S O L I

Sticking Points

As Player, Then Coach, Reese Takes Women’s Lacrosse to NCAA Titles WHEN THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND women’s lacrosse

team netted its 15th national title in May, Cathy Reese ’98 hoisted the NCAA trophy for an astonishing 12th time.

After winning it all in each of her four years as an attacker for the Terps, Reese helped UMD tally another three titles as assistant coach before taking the helm in 2007. Since then, she’s become the program’s winningest head coach, leading Maryland to 11 consecutive Final Fours and five more championships.

Along the way, Reese has seen members of her squad take home eight Tewaaraton Awards, given annually to the top collegiate player in the sport—including goalie Megan Taylor this past season.

The accolades don’t stop there. Huddle up and check how Reese’s success has been

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Coach of the Year

COACH

11

MOST OUTSTANDING PLAYER

-Time Conference Coach of the Year

5

2019 National Lacrosse

National championships

-Time All-American

2

1998 NCAA Tournament

Conference Championships

4

PLAYER

-Time National

“I needed to go back,” Bin says.

“I wanted to prove to Sash and to my teammates that I wasn’t just going to be a body on the team. I wanted to be someone that everyone could count on.”

Bin returned to UMD that fall, competing in eight games. He broke out the next year during the Terps’ title run, playing in 21 matches and tying for second on the team with four goals, including a pair of game winners.

After hoisting the championship trophy, Bin also earned recognition for his triumph off the field with the N4A Wilma Rudolph Student-Athlete Achievement Award, which honors players who overcome personal, emotional or academic obstacles. Sitting out this season with an ACL tear, he’s spreading his message to people who might be going through something similar.

“Hopefully they can learn a little bit about their mental health journey from mine,” Bin says. “(The athlete is) often portrayed as this emotionless creature.

I think it’s important to understand and realize that we’re not.”—AD

National Championships

intertwined with the Terps’.—AD

Winningest Coach at Maryland EXTRA SHOTS

4

One of three head coaches in this year’s

FINAL

Hall of Fame Inductee

(270–22), passing her own coach, Cindy Timchal, on April 3. (Reese and Timchal account for 13 of UMD women’s lacrosse’s 15 national titles.)

Had Maryland Dairy (with Kelly Amonte Hiller ’96 of Northwestern and Acacia Walker-Weinstein ’05 of Boston College) who are UMD alumni.

P H O T O C O U R T E SY O F M A R Y L A N D AT H L E T I C S

ICE CREAM FLAVOR

named in her honor this year: Cathy’s Victory Swirl blends vanilla ice cream with crushed Reese’s cups, Reese’s Pieces and a chocolate sauce.

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The Nazi Reactor That Wasn’t Researchers Trace Fallout of Hitler’s Failed Nuclear Bid

t isn’t every day that a black cube of Nazi uranium mysteriously appears on someone’s desk in College Park.

When it does, however, the probability that the desk belongs to Associate Research Professor Tim Koeth approaches 100%.

Koeth is known among a small community of like-minded enthusiasts as a collector of radiological oddities, including whimsical early 20th-century uranium glassware

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that glows a Martian green under UV light and a range of Geiger counters.

But the roughly cast hunk of radioactive metal that fell into his hands in summer 2013, accompanied by a cryptic note—“Taken from the reactor that Hitler tried to build. Gift of Ninninger.”—differed markedly from the other artifacts he’s collected from childhood.

The two-inch cube—don’t worry, it’s not kept on campus or sufficiently radioactive in its non-enriched state to threaten bystand-

ers—sent Koeth and Miriam “Mimi” Hiebert Ph.D. ’19, who volunteered to help, on a years-long quest to uncover its history. Their article on the cube’s 70-year journey was published this spring in Physics Today.

“To me, this cube represents a relic of the program that catalyzed the Manhattan Project and subsequently, both good and bad—weapons, nuclear energy, nuclear

P H O T O S B Y J O H N T. C O N S O L I

“For the first time, we either had the capacity to save ourselves, or completely destroy ourselves.”

—ASSOCIATE RESEARCH PROFESSOR TIM KOETH

medicine,” Koeth says. “It’s the dawning of a new era in human existence, when for the first time, we either had the capacity to save ourselves, or completely destroy ourselves.”

Koeth and Hiebert detail how the uranium cube was manufactured as part of Nazi Germany’s failed drive to build a nuclear reactor. Reports of German progress in nuclear physics had already spurred the creation of the Manhattan Project, culminating in the atomic bombing of Japan.

In the war’s waning days, U.S. authorities got their first look at the actual state of the German effort, “which was pitiful,” Koeth says. Instead of a weapons program, they discovered German scientists had tried to build a reactor in a cave beneath a castle in Haigerloch in southwestern Germany, but could never get the device to work.

As Germany collapsed, its scientists had buried the uranium and fled, but U.S. troops unearthed the cubes in April 1945.

Koeth and Hiebert found historical records detailing how U.S. authorities shipped the cubes to Paris, but what came next is unclear. Along with Koeth’s cube, several others are known to exist in the United States, including one at the Smithsonian Institution and another used in science classes at Harvard University.

By strange coincidence, a few days after Koeth received the unknown Ninninger’s cube through channels he won’t fully disclose, he was browsing at a used bookshop and stumbled across “Materials for Atomic Science” by Robert D. Nininger (without a double “n”). He tracked down the author’s widow, and discovered he’d served in the

I L L U S T R AT I O N BY M AT T H E W L A U M A N N

Manhattan Project group charged with procuring uranium. By the time the 664 cubes reached U.S. shores—assuming they all did—so much uranium had been stockpiled that they wouldn’t have been needed. So what happened to them next?

It’s a question that Hiebert—who’s planning a book about it after she finishes her dissertation in materials science and engineering—intends to answer.

“I have the feeling they’re out there, and I’m going to open a door one day and find them,” she says.

Another find by Koeth, as he was digging through records at the National Archives at College Park in 2014, cast the project in a new light. In a box labeled “German Uranium,” he discovered documents, including some recently declassified by the CIA, revealing that 400 other uranium cubes had existed in Germany—part of a competing reactor project.

While most were likely taken by the Soviets, a tragicomic postwar trade arose with a few that slipped away, which were rumored—incorrectly—to be wildly valuable, Koeth says.

What’s chilling about the archival discovery was Koeth’s calculation that had Nazi German authorities forced the competing science teams to work together—as the United States had done in the Manhattan Project—the full tally of German uranium used in one facility would likely have resulted in a functional nuclear reactor for Hitler’s Germany.

It was, Koeth and Hiebert write, “a failure worth celebrating.”—cc

Produce Safety a Zap Away?

WHILE THOROUGH WASHING can

head off some of the foodborne illnesses that sicken tens of millions of people and kill several thousand yearly in the United States, a less-than-perfect cleaning can make the problem worse, according to a UMD expert.

“It makes produce look appealing and removes dirt, but if it is not done properly, water becomes a carrier for this small amount of bacteria to spread to a larger batch of produce,” says Rohan Tikekar, assistant professor of nutrition and food science.

What if there were a better way?

Tikekar and colleagues are working on technology so food producers and even consumers can pop produce into a microwave-like device for a minute, effectively giving it a bath in low-temperature plasma that kills 99 percent of surface bacteria while avoiding excess water use.

The researchers, including co-author Gottlieb Oehrlein, professor of materials science and engineering with a joint appointment with the Institute for Research in Electronics and Applied Physics, and lead author Pingshan Luan Ph.D. ’18, describe the device in a paper published in Plasma Processes and Polymers.

They’re now looking at how the device affects nutritional value.

Because it only works on a thin layer at the surface, they expect little

Tim Koeth’s fascination with radiation goes back to childhood—even prompting state authorities to descend on his family home. Read the story at terp.umd.edu/beam-team.

impact, and consumers could soon have a safety measure that Oehrlein says would be as easy as “flipping a light switch on and off.”—CC

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FA C U LT Y Q & A J O H N D AV I S ‘ 9 9

Were you always interested in music?

Yeah, as far back as I can remember.

My dad worked in radio, so we got to go to radio stations and get free records. I eventually started to play music. I was looking for an identity, being 14, 15 years old and not really liking most of what life was like in high school, and not really wanting to be into drugs and drinking and all the things that everybody felt they had to do to fit in. I liked rejecting that.

Punk was a good way to do that.

What was working at WMUC like?

I was given the 6-to-9-a.m. shift. I was living off campus at the time, so I once even spent the night at a 24-hour computer lab, then slept on the couch in the radio station for a couple hours and then did my show.

The dining hall would open at 7 a.m. or something like that and I’d put on a long song, like a 20-minute Sonic Youth song, and go downstairs and get breakfast.

How did Q And Not U get started?

We all were obsessed with music and local music and we really, really wanted to be a part of it. And we’d all been in bands to some degree, MOSHING FANS, thrashing guitars and ripped T-shirts aplenty may not be what the shushing librarians of your

but it never really felt full-on. We

youth had in mind for their archives, but deep within the stacks of the Michelle Smith Performing Arts Library,

were all at the Tastee Diner in Silver

punk rock lives. John Davis ’99, performing arts metadata archivist there, started the collection with his personal

Spring and we’re like, are we going

cache of photographs, concert flyers and fanzines documenting decades of Washington, D.C.’s thriving hardcore

to do this? And we did.

punk scene that gave birth to bands like Fugazi, Government Issue and Bad Brains. Davis started off as a fan, then became the drummer in the D.C. post-hardcore band Q And Not U. We talked with Davis about what drew

How did you get into archival work?

him to punk music, his radical career change and why he thinks punk and archive work go hand in hand.—SL

I knew Vincent Novara, who’s the

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P H O T O B Y S T E P H A N I E S . C O R D L E ; I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y VA L E R I E M O R G A N

Inclusive Care Center to Focus on Improving Mental Health Among LGBTQ+ Communities

seeking to combat.

This fall, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is awarding the University of Maryland Prevention Research Center (UMD-PRC)

order or attempt or consider

in the School of Public Health

suicide than cisgender or

funding to improve mental

heterosexual people, yet many

health and health care among

have reported dissatisfaction

curator here. He’s an amazing drummer

TRANSGENDER PATIENTS can

LGBTQ+ communities. The

with mental health care due

and he was in punk bands. He was

experience their first disparity

center at Maryland will raise

to lack of acceptance and

always willing to [offer] me a part-time

in health care as soon as

awareness, develop best prac-

understanding.

project that I could work on when I was

they’re handed an intake form

tices and promote training for

home from tour. So when I realized

that includes choices only of

students and providers.

that I couldn’t make a living anymore

“male” and “female.” Lesbian,

playing music, I got into the MLIS

gay or bisexual people can

a similar five-year CDC

sensitively address these

program at Catholic University. Then

also face inaccurate assump-

agreement and an emphasis

issues,” says Bradley O.

there happened to be something here

tions from providers.

on addressing HIV in

Boekeloo, UMD-PRC director.

Founded in 2009 with

“Health care and mental health care providers are often not prepared to

part-time, and I just hung around and

Stigma, discrimination

Prince George’s County,

“We’d like to more broadly

worked my way to a faculty position.

and general lack of resources

the Prevention Research

publicize the relationship of

contribute to these and

Center is shifting its focus to

stigma to the mental health

When did you start your personal collection of punk ephemera?

other inequities for LGBTQ+

another urgent issue. LGBTQ+

of LGBTQ+ populations and

populations—issues University

individuals are more likely to

further understand mental

Starting from high school—those were

of Maryland researchers are

have a mood or anxiety dis-

health concerns.” —AD

flyers and photographs I took, and punk fanzines. I had heard of a couple of different institutions that collected stuff like that, so I thought maybe we can do that here. We started with zines, and that wound up being a pretty well-used collection. Once we showed that there’s genuine academic research being done with these materials, we thought, let’s get more.

Research Finds Toxic Tradeoff in PollutionControl Battle AS CHINA ENACTS AMBITIOUS pollution control policies

Their results, published in Science Advances, suggest that reducing emissions and water consumption in the urban region worsened pollution in neighboring provinces. That’s likely because factory production and energy generation moved from Beijing into areas where pollution policies are more lenient.

“Our intention is certainly not to blame or discour-

It seems like a lot of punk people are also into archive and library work. Why do you think that is?

may be shifting pollution elsewhere in the country.

I don’t have a fully formed theory about

A global team of researchers used computer

and corresponding author on the study. “However,

it yet, but I do think that telling stories,

models of interregional trade and chemical flows in

without considering the unintended side effects of

sharing enthusiasm, documenting

the atmosphere to simulate clean-air policy scenarios

isolated environmental policies, these might backfire

what went on, documenting

in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region—home to more

and lead to an increase in environmental problems in

ephemeral activities and materials

than 100 million people—and evaluate the unintended

other regions as well as an overall increase in pollution

from a community that’s generally

consequences outside the urban center.

nationwide.”

to improve air quality in urban areas, University of

age environmental policies designed to reduce air

Maryland-supported research finds these measures

pollution,” says Kuishuang Feng, an associate research professor in the Department of Geographical Sciences

overlooked—all of those things sort of fit in with the punk mindset of communicating and sharing ideas and doing it yourself.

I N C L U S I V E C A R E I L L U S T R AT I O N BY M A R G A R E T H A L L ; P O L L U T I O N I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y VA L E R I E M O R G A N

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Drain Gain

Researchers Seek to Lift Urban Areas by Managing Stormwater n the alley behind the 1800 block of Vine Street in West Baltimore, Paul Leisnham and a handful of UMD students are on the hunt for the right kind of trash.

It’s a promising location of mostly abandoned rowhomes. Some have their entire insides exposed due to crumbling walls—a toilet even hangs off a second floor—and broken, soggy detritus is piled along the ground.

Walking through the area on a swampy June morning, Leisnham (right), an associate professor in the Department of Environmental Science and Technology, and the students eventually find what they are looking for: a water-filled tire abandoned in a shady lot overgrown with weeds and untrimmed shrubs. It’s the perfect place for mosquitoes, and with just a turkey baster and a couple containers, the UMD crew confirms baby bloodsuckers are in there.

Leisnham’s work identifying and sampling the city’s mosquito population is part of a new UMD project to make urban environments more comfortable, welcoming and environmentally sustainable.

“If people have this pest in their backyard, it alters their behavior,” Leisnham says.

“Immediately, they have a negative perception of urban green space and stormwater practices that collect water.”

With a $1.5 million grant from the National Science Foundation, researchers from disciplines ranging from landscape architecture and environmental health to bioengineering will work in neighborhoods in Baltimore, Prince George’s County and Washington, D.C., to identify how garbage, vacant lots and failing infrastructure impact residents’ health and perceptions in places

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with the copious hard surfaces and refuse that capture rain and produce pests. The ultimate goal will be to find effective outreach techniques to promote community caretaking as well as put in accessible, small-scale solutions like urban gardens or rain barrels to address excessive stormwater.

The UMD team is consulting on the project with community partners as well, including the Anacostia Watershed Society, the Parks & People Foundation and Blue Water Baltimore.

“We still haven’t got a good handle on stormwater management,” Leisnham says.

“In the past, there’s been a real disconnect (between residents and experts).”

That’s partially because what helps prevent stormwater runoff in urban places, like areas

with natural vegetation and rain barrels, can be mistaken for the sort of habitats that breed mosquitoes, Leisnham says. But if managed correctly, well-maintained green space and functional containers are far better than a vacant lot with impervious surfaces and dumped trash, where a bottle cap full of stagnant water can be enough to propagate pests.

Since a “large swath of the city is sort of nature-deprived,” says Steve Preston, a construction and design manager with the Parks & People Foundation, these spaces can become a source of neighborhood pride—and if a pile of old tires disappears, it’s unlikely another will take its place.

“People have waited decades for green space,” Preston says. “Once they are improved, people want to take care of it.”—lf

P H OTO BY E DW I N R E M S B E RG P H OTO G RA P H Y

THE BIG QUESTION

What’s the most important cultural object in the world?

BILL BOWERMAN

ANA NDUMU

CHAIR, DEPARTMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCH SCHOLAR, COLLEGE OF INFORMATION STUDIES

The four copies of the Magna Carta, for the essence of governance and rights is derived from it. This is especially true in our current time, when we have questions of the rule of law and the role of the sovereign. While we are a melting pot of nationalities in our country, which is our great strength, the origin of our laws is derived from the United Kingdom, and ultimately, from this document.

The most important cultural object in the world is the Cape Coast Castle in Ghana. More significant than the edifice itself is what took place in and through it. The “castle” was one of the most active ports during the slave trade. Despite the horrors of slavery, African diasporic communities continue to demonstrate strength and pride. The Cape Coast Castle is the setting of a book that I am currently reading, “Homegoing” by Yaa Gyasi. The Obama family visited the castle in 2009. I am looking forward to my first visit this year.

—

STEVE MOUNT ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR, DEPARTMENT OF CELL BIOLOGY AND MOLECULAR GENETICS

—

The Antikythera Mechanism is a complex clockwork device, or analog computer, dating to about 150 BCE in ancient Greece. The mechanism could track astronomical and lunar positions for calendric calculations, and predict eclipses of the sun and moon decades in advance. It was retrieved from the sea in 1901 in one piece, and X-ray tomography to image inside fragments of the crust-encased mechanism has allowed the identification of 37 bronze gears, and inscriptions that once covered the outer casing of the machine. This object illustrates the sophistication of “ancient” Mediterranean technology some 1,300 years before clockwork returned to Europe, and 2,100 years before digital computers.

—

MARGARET A. WALKER ASSISTANT CLINICAL PROFESSOR, ART EDUCATION, DEPARTMENT OF TEACHING AND LEARNING, POLICY AND LEADERSHIP

—

I don’t believe there is one “most important cultural object,” as every culture has created something of great significance to the shaping of our world. But one of the greatest objects to change and shape culture in Europe was Gutenberg’s printing press with moveable print. This allowed ideas to be spread much more quickly, and helped to democratize European society through access to literacy, education and learning, rather than being reserved for the moneyed elite.

Share your answer and see more faculty responses at terp.umd.edu/BigQ6 Suggest a future question at terpfeedback.umd.edu I L L U S T R AT I O N BY L I N C O L N A G N E W

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FASTER, SAFER, CHEAPER A woman’s lifesaving new kidney arrived by drone, and the nation’s transplant system may never be the same.

BY CHRIS CARROLL 22

T E R P. U M D . E D U

THE FLIGHT HAD BEEN PLANNED for years

and rehearsed for months, but only a tragedy could set it in motion. On a Thursday in midApril, the call came.

“We have a match.”

The caller was Dr. Joseph Scalea, an organ transplant surgeon at the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC) in Baltimore and an assistant surgery professor at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

For the last three years, Scalea—youthful, animated, with a crushing handshake and

P H O T O B Y J O H N T. C O N S O L I

penchant for whoops and fist pumps—had been pouring enormous energy into a project that, if successful, could substantially change his field of medicine.

On the other end of the call was Tony “Pooch” Pucciarella, then-director of operations at the UMD Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Test Site in St. Mary’s County. An aerospace engineer and retired U.S. Navy pilot who’d flown both heavily armed maritime patrol aircraft and passenger planes, Pucciarella is as laid-back and circumspect as Scalea is exuberant.

That night—working with a team of more than 100 doctors, UAS Test Site aviation experts, organ transplant technicians and planners, police and other city and federal officials—they planned to remove a kidney from a deceased organ donor, strap it beneath a specially designed drone along with a new system to monitor the organ’s health, and send it on autopilot 2.8 miles across southwest Baltimore to UMMC. There, Scalea and other doctors would transplant it into a patient with kidney failure—a frontier never before crossed in medicine and flight.

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It would have been easier to drive the kidney to the hospital from the Living Legacy Foundation, a nonprofit agency that coordinates organ donations in Maryland. The point, however, was to show doctors and transplant system officials that Scalea’s vision of national, on-demand organ shipments using drones to speed up transport and improve surgical outcomes wasn’t fundamentally bonkers.

“I’ve brought this up and been laughed out of the room,” he says. “They would literally laugh me out of the room.”

For the idea to be taken seriously, the UAS Test Site crew would have to engineer a rock-solid, reliable unmanned aircraft that wouldn’t fall out of the sky at the first hint of trouble and pulverize the precious kidney, or someone below. An equal challenge was finagling flight details over a densely populated area with Federal Aviation Administration officials dealing with a rising tide of civilian drones by enforcing strict rules about what could fly where and when.

As the doctor and the drone expert spoke on the phone, the gravity of the flight settled on them. A failed experiment might end not only Scalea’s hopes for the new system, but also a woman’s chance at survival. With uncharacter-

The organ transporttransplant project was born out of the MPowering the State initiative, a growing partnership between the University of Maryland and the University of Maryland, Baltimore.

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Drone pilot Ryan Henderson (left) and Tony Pucciarella, former director of operations at the UAS Test Site, watch the progress of the first flight to carry an organ to a patient by unmanned aircraft.

istic trepidation, he told Pucciarella, “I know you’re not going to let anything happen.”

After the call, Pucciarella’s wife observed he’d turned pale.

“I’ve done a lot of crazy things in military aviation, but this was pretty intense,” he said later. “There was a lot riding on this.”

THE PATIENT By early 2019, Trina Glispy of Baltimore realized she was likely to die as her father did, of kidney and heart failure.

Glispy, 44, was in her mid-30s when her own kidneys stopped working. In 2011, she began dialysis treatments, hooking up to a machine three times a week, four hours apiece, to filter waste and toxins from her blood. She quit her job as a certified nursing assistant at the Baltimore VA Medical Center two years later.

DARRYLL PINES, A. JAMES CLARK SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING DEAN AND NARIMAN FARVARDIN PROFESSOR OF AEROSPACE ENGINEERING

“This is the most significant technological collaboration between the two institutions so far, because it has a practical reality that made someone’s life better—it’s not just a simulation. This demonstration was possible only because of this wonderful collaboration between the University of Maryland School of Medicine, the University of Maryland Medical Center and University of Maryland A. James Clark School of Engineering. It shows how effectively we are leveraging each other’s assets.”

“It was harder and harder to keep up with the patients,” Glispy says. “When you’re on dialysis, it’s just draining. It seems like it takes up most of your life.”

Glispy’s daughter, the oldest of four children, took over as the family’s primary breadwinner, while Glispy joined the national kidney transplant waitlist and arranged her life around the cycle of dialysis. If she missed an appointment or just had a bad week, fluid buildup made it hard to breathe and sapped her remaining strength.

She slowly climbed the waiting list, but three times in 2018 and 2019, possible matches fell through.

“I started to feel like I wasn’t going to get the kidney,” she says.

Scalea had already talked to her about the drone project, and Glispy agreed to participate. It sounded odd—the idea of a pilotless little helicopter buzzing over the city with her

DR. MOHAN SUNTHA, UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND MEDICAL CENTER PRESIDENT AND CEO

“This advance—the delivery by drone of an organ used in a transplant—is an incredible first, an in-human demonstration showing the power of innovation and collaboration. All the different entities that came together to make this happen is an exciting part of this story. From a care perspective, a young woman from West Baltimore has … a new perspective on long-term health. From a broader perspective, this represents the opportunity to prove important new concepts at an academic medical center with a university partnership.”

P H OTOS CO U RT ESY O F U N I V E R S I T Y O F M A RY L A N D M E D I CA L C E N T E R

new kidney—but exciting as well. Glispy, who worked for years with military veterans at the VA hospital, was happy the flight would be overseen by two former military officers—Pucciarella and his boss, UAS Test Site Director Matt Scassero, a retired Navy captain.

Scalea asked Glispy once more just before the transplant whether she was still comfortable with the plan. Bring on the drone, she said.

“We have incredible technologies at our fingertips, and we can’t even get a lifesaving organ from one place to another in a timely fashion.”

—DR. JOSEPH SCALEA, TRANSPLANT SURGEON

THE PROBLEM A clock starts ticking when an organ is separated from the bodily systems supporting it. If Glispy’s procedure went smoothly, only a few hours would pass between the removal of the kidney from the donor and its transplantation, improving her chances of a successful surgery.

“A kidney can last 24 to 30 hours on ice with a pretty reasonable outcome,” Scalea says. “After that, the results become a little shaky, because the organ is deteriorating.”

The creeping pace at which organs reach their patients regularly frustrates transplant surgeons. Ironically, medical advances contribute to the delays, because as doctors and transplant system officials increasingly gain the ability to precisely match organs to recipients, they cast a wider geographical net, upping the likelihood of a match thousands of miles away.

The organs’ journeys are coordinated by the equivalent of travel agents who struggle to rush the organs through crowded airports, or to and from areas poorly served by airlines.

Another option is charter flights, but they can be expensive and complex to arrange.

“Here in Baltimore, we’re blessed to be served by a very active airport, but in many parts of the country where that’s not the case, we struggle to get kidneys onto commercial flights to reach waiting recipients,” says Charlie Alexander, CEO of the Living Legacy

THE PARTNERSHIP In 2016, while discussing the problem with Alexander and thinking about technological solutions, Scalea landed on an idea for a web of small, fast, relatively inexpensive drones to speed organs between nearby hospitals or cross-country to supplement the current delivery system. Meanwhile, a suite of sensors would constantly monitor temperature, vibration and other variables, and a GPS tracking device would ensure the aircraft could be found if it went off course or crashed.

Although an ambitious plan, Scalea realized it could make individual transplants “faster, safer and cheaper,” he says, and benefit patients by ultimately making more organs available for transplantation.

Drones have risen in the public consciousness over the past decade as government agencies increasingly used them in military operations and disaster recovery. Amazon, Google and other companies, meanwhile, are exploring fast, automated package delivery by unmanned aircraft. Smaller, cheaper variants have become popular with hobbyist pilots.

Scalea called Norman Wereley, chair of the A. James Clark School of Engineering’s aero-

Foundation, which worked with the grieving family that entrusted a loved one’s organ to the University of Maryland drone.

Alexander, a former trauma nurse at UMMC’s R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center, wants to avoid an even more distressing outcome: “I can recall three events when organ recovery teams went down on charter flights or helicopters doing this work. If we didn’t need to have people on those missions, those losses wouldn’t have to happen.”

The upshot of the difficulties of moving organs is that in 2018, about 4% of kidney transports directly overseen by the United Network for Organ Sharing, which manages the organ transplant system nationwide, had unexpected, multi-hour delays, and 1.5% didn’t reach the destination in a usable state. Scalea once implanted a kidney that had taken 29 hours to make it from Alabama to Maryland, potentially reducing the lifespan of the organ by years.

“I thought to myself, this is completely crazy—we have incredible technologies at our fingertips, and we can’t even After a get a lifesaving organ from one successful flight, the kidney is place to another in a timely carried from fashion,” he says. the landing pad at R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center.

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“When you work on a drone, you can design the entire aircraft, then get your hands dirty when you build it.”

—LUAN DUONG ‘13, UAS TEST SITE ENGINEER

space engineering department. Organ delivery might turn out to make the UAS an indispensable part of the medical system, Wereley said, and he put Scalea in touch with Scassero at the engineering school’s UAS Test Site.

The director at the test site, Scassero spent three decades in the Navy as a flight officer with a background in electronic warfare, serving in combat in Operation Desert Storm and the Kosovo War. The two quickly devised a project that was later partly funded by the MPowering the State strategic initiative, which leverages complementary strengths at UMD and the University of Maryland, Baltimore, including the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

Scalea’s idea seems straightforward, Scassero says, but contains hidden challenges.

“Technically, to go from point A to point B carrying an organ isn’t that hard,” Scassero says. “But to do it with complete reliability, in a way that the FAA and the medical community will both have confidence in—that’s a challenge.”

THE DRONE To carry a lifesaving organ to one of Scalea’s patients, the aircraft design would have to proceed less like a typical civilian drone, and more like a civilian passenger plane, with redundant safety systems.

Scassero assigned test site aerospace engineer Luan Duong ’13 to design what they would call the LG-1000. Flight had fascinated Duong since he began flying model planes as a boy with his father in Vietnam, and after immigrating to the United States, he chose the Clark School’s aerospace engineering program, gravitating to unmanned aircraft.

“When you work on a larger aircraft, you design a part on a computer,” he says. “When you work on a drone, you can design the entire aircraft, then get your hands dirty when you build it.”

Most civilian drones are, Pucciarella says bluntly, “a big bundle of single-point failures,” each capable of creating a catastrophic failure. To make their drone more resilient, Duong selected an eight-rotor design rather than the more typical four-rotor configuration, allowing the drone to continue flying even if a motor or two died. A battery failure would send a typical drone hurtling toward the ground, but Dr. Joseph Scalea holds this one would use a the kidney, flanked by Norman Wereley, chair pair for backup. Two of the Department of radios would guard Aerospace Engineering; Dr. Thomas Scalea, against a loss of comphysician in chief at the munications. And if R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center (and everything else failed, uncle to Joseph Scalea); and Matt Scassero, UAS Test Site director.

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T E R P. U M D . E D U

Duong had a last resort.

“Tony called me up and said, ‘Hey, you gotta buy a parachute,’” Scalea says. “I just laughed … but then I was like, Yeah, we should definitely have a parachute.”

The drone underwent 44 test flights including a final one along the actual route in Baltimore in April.

Then the team settled down to wait for Glispy’s kidney match.

THE FLIGHT In the early hours of April 19, some team members gathered in a parking lot near Baltimore’s St. Agnes Hospital, while others waited at UMMC. Scalea, Scassero and Alexander marked the occasion with brief remarks about Glispy’s bravery in allowing her lifeline kidney to be used in the experiment, and praised the deceased donor and grieving family for the gift of life.

After strapping the standard, cardboard organ delivery box holding the kidney and monitoring system to the drone, Scalea jumped into a Baltimore police car and raced toward UMMC while BPD officers shut down streets along the flight path. Because the FAA certificate of authorization for the flight required it to always remain in sight, UAS Test Site personnel fanned out along the route to keep an eye on the drone as it passed 300 feet overhead.

As soon as Scalea arrived at the hospital, Pucciarella gave the launch order, saying, “Let’s make some history.” As it rose into the night sky, he removed his cap and crossed himself.

The team was confident in its UAS, but less so in one variable that members couldn’t control. Because it was supposed to land on the busy Shock Trauma helipad, any incoming emergency medical flight would bump

P H OTOS CO U RT ESY O F U N I V E R S I T Y O F M A RY L A N D M E D I CA L C E N T E R

theirs. If notification came early enough, the aircraft could double back, get fresh batteries and try the approximately 20-minute flight Dr. Joseph again. After a certain point, Scalea (left) and colleagues however, the remaining transplant the battery life would force it to kidney carried across Baltimore continue on, and if the pad by drone into was still occupied, test site patient Trina Glispy. engineer Josh Gaus ’18, waiting at the hospital, would have to manually land it on a regular rooftop—doable, but riskier than the pad.

But the drone was cleared to proceed, and as it landed atop Shock Trauma, wild cheers erupted from the small crowd that had gathered. Pilot Ryan Henderson declared the drone “disarmed,” and Scalea crouched next to it to peer at the digital readout on the box containing the organ.

“Temperature is appropriate, organ doesn’t appear to be injured at all—looks like a perfectly transplantable organ,” he said, clearly fighting to control his excitement.

THE FUTURE Two months after her surgery, Glispy said her recovery has had its up and down days, but all of them are better than dealing with the endless grind of dialysis and constantly feeling that her time was running out.

“I don’t feel like my life is on a clock anymore,” she said, adding that she hopes to return to work as a nurse’s assistant soon.

Scalea, Scassero and Pucciarella are now discussing further organ delivery flights around the country, including in cities with desert and high-altitude environments. How the eventual system will be built, and with

“I don’t feel like my life is on a clock anymore.”

—TRINA GLISPY, KIDNEY TRANSPLANT RECIPIENT

what kind of drone, remain uncertain.

The research Scassero and crew are conducting at the UMD UAS Test Site could help answer broader questions: How does the industry go about creating a supply chain of reliable aircraft components, much like in passenger aviation? What complex technical and policy adjustments are needed to integrate drones into U.S. airspaces on a regular basis?

They’re problems that must be solved before Scalea’s dream of a speedy, nimble transport system can whisk lifesaving organs from city to city, or across the continent.

“Basically, I can’t wait to be able to tell my patients they’re going to get several more years of life out of their organs because of how we transplanted them,” he says. “This is my passion. I believe I can really help my whole field, and do it with this incredibly talented group of smart people at the University of Maryland.” TERP

Thousands of people donate organs yearly, but the need is even greater.

113,379

people waiting for a transplant as of August 2019

6

consecutive record-breaking years for transplants (2013–18)

36,500

transplants in 2018

10,700

deceased donors in 2018

6,900

living donors in 2018 Source: United Network for Organ Sharing

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_ BY L I A M FA R R E L L

A B S U R D I T Y O F

A YEAR AFTER HER HUSBAND WAS KILLED IN A MASS SHOOTING, ANDREA CHAMBLEE ’83 NAVIGATES GRIEF BY FINISHING HIS FINAL BOOK AND TAKING A PUBLIC ROLE IN GUNREFORM ACTIVISM.

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H E R

D A Y S _

andrea chamblee sits at what is now just her kitchen table, in just her dining room, in just her house in a D.C. suburb, and clutches a stack of pages to her chest.

The manuscript is only a manuscript in the most literal sense, just as the summer shirts, winter coats and brand-new sneakers she gave away last year weren’t just shirts, coats and sneakers. The death of the person she loves most—John McNamara ’83, one of five Capital Gazette employees gunned down last year in their Annapolis newsroom—gave them a much deeper significance.

“I feel so torn about setting it free,” she

says of the book, “The Capital of Basketball: A History of D.C. Area High School Hoops,” which McNamara had spent more than a decade compiling and had nearly completed before he died. “It’s kind of a last piece of him I have to let go. But I have to let it go.”

Finishing the final chapters, securing photo permissions and researching caption information for the book, scheduled for release by Georgetown University Press in November, was a “much-needed distraction,” Chamblee ’83 says.

A government lawyer who asked an Amazon Alexa each morning how many days

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were left until the couple’s planned retirement (1,008 on the morning of the shootings), she has been navigating an alien landscape of grief while trying to piece together a new identity.

She has become by turns a book agent, a philanthropist and a political activist railing against America’s plague of mass shootings.

“I’m determined to show up and talk about John and his work,” Chamblee says. “I want people to remember this is happening and the ripple effect is devastating and long-lasting.

“And I keep thinking, if not me, then who?”

Chamblee and her husband, John McNamara, met at the University of Maryland and were married two years after graduation. They are pictured on their honeymoon in May 1985 in the Poconos.

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chamblee spent the afternoon and evening of June 28, 2018, in the panicked purgatory of an unanswered question: Is John OK? She was working during the newsroom shootings, and a flurry of text messages soon alerted her that McNamara could be in danger. As nearby televisions carried early reports about the violence, Chamblee tried, and failed, repeatedly to reach her husband on his office and cell phones.

Reporters from The New York Post, New York Daily News and “Good Morning America” called, obliquely asking her for a comment without saying what specifically they wanted her to talk about. A Wall Street Journal reporter volunteered that McNamara might be among the injured, but officials at nearby Anne Arundel Medical Center and Baltimore’s R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center told Chamblee he wasn’t there.

After seven hours of waiting, detailed by Chamblee in an essay last July for The Washington Post, she answered yet another phone call from yet another unfamiliar number. This time, one of McNamara’s co-workers was on

the other end. She was finally given the answer, as her own screams joined the anguished chorus audible over the line.

It was the cruelest of endings to a story that began on Halloween in 1981 at the old Varsity Grill on Route 1, after the Terps’ football game where star quarterback Boomer Esiason got carted off the field with a neck injury. Chamblee likes to say that talking to McNamara that night made her feel like the one seeing stars.

They got married two years after graduation—Chamblee’s mother memorably jumped into the hotel pool during the reception—and built their lives together.

Chamblee graduated from the University of Maryland School of Law and was hired by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and McNamara, who had written for The Diamondback, worked for a variety of local newspapers before settling at The Capital.

“Johnny Mac,” as he was known, was a walking sports encyclopedia who earned praise from journalists and subjects alike for his ability to write without bias or pretense about Terps athletics, despite being a passionate fan. He never left the office without asking if there was something else he could do, and didn’t lose sight of how much it meant for young local athletes to see their name in print.

Even as The Capital’s sports staff shrank, and McNamara’s primary job changed to covering local news, he still wrote occasional sports features and kept a Sunday night shift copy-editing the sports pages.

“He was one dedicated guy and the best co-worker you could have,” says Gerry Jackson, McNamara’s editor.

“John was a class-A writer, and he was always going to be a class-A writer.”

McNamara had written books on Terps football (“University of Maryland Football Vault”) and basketball (“Cole Classics! Maryland Basketball’s Leading Men and Moments”), and had long thought the D.C. basketball scene was fodder for one as well. He got started on it in 2007, spurred by the death of former Archbishop Carroll coach Bob Dwyer and the worry that the rich stories of the pre-Internet age would disappear with its eyewitnesses.

The book, which covers D.C. basketball from 1900–2000, chronicles characters and innovations from legendary Boston Celtics coach Red Auerbach and NBA Hall of

P H OTO CO U RT ESY O F A N D R E A C H A M B L E E

“ I WA N T P EO P L E TO REMEMBER THIS IS HAPPENING AND THE RIPPLE EFFECT IS D E VA S TAT I N G A N D LONG-LASTING.” —ANDREA CHAMBLEE '83

Famer Elgin Baylor to the High Point High School basketball coach who created a defensive system inspired by his son’s Transformers action figures.

David Elfin, a friend of McNamara’s since the early 1980s and co-author of “Cole Classics,” volunteered to help with this project following McNamara’s funeral service at Memorial Chapel.

“For (Chamblee), it’s a labor of love,” Elfin says. “For me, it’s a tribute.”

While covering sports can gradually erode a spectator’s passion, McNamara always loved high school basketball.

The romance he found while attending his first prep game as a freshman at St. John’s in Washington, D.C.—a winter’s night’s clash against rival Archbishop Carroll, with raw and talented peers competing at just an arm’s length away— never faded.

“In terms of value for your entertainment dollar,” he wrote in his book’s preface last year, “I still believe you can’t beat a good high school basketball game.”

valley, a winding valley where any bend may reveal a totally new landscape … Sometimes the surprise is the opposite one; you are presented with exactly the same sort of country you thought you left behind miles ago.”

Chamblee has a 21st-century version of this process on Facebook. Continually bumping the bruises of her new life—from forgetting to prepare just one serving of broccoli to battling the insurance company that denied her claim until she could prove she didn’t kill McNamara herself—she began posting summaries of them. They weren’t surreal, which felt like a description more suited for a fictional movie or a painting of melting clocks; they were “absurd.” #AbsurdityoftheDay: The work phone rang at 7:15 and for a moment I thought it was John telling me to stop working and come home for dinner. But instead it was a spam call.

Now it’s time to go to the dry cleaner before it closes to pick up my black dress for another event. (Oct. 25)

Chamblee marches with Cherie Baron (left) and her sister, Cindy (right), during a vigil held in downtown Annapolis the day after her husband and four other Capital Gazette employees were killed in June 2018.

after his wife died of cancer in the summer of 1960, C.S. Lewis began to write down his thoughts on life, death and faith.

His goal in the journals that were later published, initially under a pseudonym, as “A Grief Observed,” was to “make a map of sorrow”—an ambition of emotional cartography that he eventually realized was futile.

“There is something new to be chronicled every day,” he wrote. “Grief is like a long

P H O T O B Y C A L L A K E S S L E R / T H E W A S H I N G T O N P O S T/ G E T T Y I M A G E S

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“ T H E F I R S T D AY T H AT T H E R E ’ S N O A B S U R D I T Y, T H A T W I L L B E M Y A B S U R D I T Y O F T H E D A Y. ” —ANDREA CHAMBLEE '83

#AbsurdityoftheDay: Don’t watch “Say Yes to the Dress” when mourning your spouse, not even for a few minutes while waiting for a comedy show to start. (Dec. 30) #AbsurdityoftheDay: I just answered a survey about me and my partner, until I got to the end and saw the option to choose “I don’t have a partner.” I didn’t choose that option. I couldn’t. (April 18) Each post is a public glimpse, sometimes sorrowful, wry or frustrated, into the private battle of living alone in a life constructed for two. Even her house itself—an unassuming two-story on a quiet street in Silver Spring—is an antagonist, forcing Chamblee to avoid the den where McNamara worked or the patio where he listened to baseball games. It’s a place in the suspended animation of an abbreviated existence.

“Closure,” she says, “is a fantasy that people dangle.”

Chamblee has made efforts to chip away at the isolation, and has often found relief in the presence of her younger sister, Cindy, who provides companionship with yoga classes, open ears and a few glasses of wine.

“Andrea was never sad, before. She always had an optimism in her energy,” Cindy says. “Andrea is still

Every day, Chamblee wears the press pass issued to her husband for UMD sports events to honor his memory.

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the sister I have known, but now tragedy colors her tremendous strength.”

Maria Hiaasen, whose husband, Rob, was a Capital editor and Philip Merrill College of Journalism lecturer killed in the shootings, is serving along with Chamblee on a new Anne Arundel County task force focused on preventing gun violence. They’ve found similarities in their grief, from frustrations with the awkward things people say to an ever-present desire to just feel normal again.

“When I see posts of hers (on Facebook), I go, ‘Oh, yeah,’” Hiaasen says. “We’re up, we’re down, we’re all around. We’re trying to make sense of where we are now.”

Lewis stopped writing his travelogue of grief once he filled the four empty notebooks left in the house when his wife died; Chamblee, writing in the unlimited space of the internet, has no such definitive ending yet in mind.

“The first day that there’s no absurdity,” she says, “that will be my absurdity of the day.”

when chamblee started lobbying for stricter gun regulations at the Annapolis State House early this year, she found the attention unsettling at first. It highlighted the two-sided nature of the gun violence problem, particularly in Maryland: While a mass shooting in a workplace like The Capital felt like a mobilizing, black swan event, the no-less deadly, and much more constant, churn of gun deaths in Baltimore can often fade into the background.

So Chamblee brought Baltimore mothers to stand with her at press conferences, hoping media attention would coalesce around them as well. After working at the FDA during the AIDS epidemic, Chamblee knows that less powerful populations often only get help when a crisis hits the mainstream. “(Politicians) can watch my new, awful life and hopefully be moved to do something,” Chamblee says.

While her Facebook page is a tool to show the vulnerability of someone affected by gun violence, Chamblee simultaneously has become a daring public face advocating for stronger gun regulations, testifying before

P H OTO BY C H I P S O M O D EV I L L A /G E T T Y I M AG ES

Chamblee has become a vocal advocate for stricter gun laws and attends rallies with groups such as Moms Demand Action.

legislators, attending Moms Demand Action rallies and speaking at community events like Ignite Annapolis.

Getting involved in a flashpoint issue in the State House was an “eye-opening experience,” Chamblee says. The legislature’s highest-profile gun bill, which sought to require background checks for private sales of guns, appeared to have enough momentum for passage, but differences between the House and Senate were never reconciled. That spurred acrimonious exchanges on social media and in letters to the editor between activists and politicians, but the conflict has only increased Chamblee’s resolve to return to Annapolis next year.

A prolific traveler with her husband, Chamblee went to Cuba by herself for her birthday in March—wearing McNamara’s press pass, as she does every day, so he could see it as well. The trip spurred a question: “Am I allowed to feel happiness?”

“I think I’ll wait and see,” she says. “I’m not prepared to say yes or no.”

While she awaits an answer, time remorselessly carries her on, through remembrances and decisions, big and small. In May, Chamblee attended a reception for the Pulitzer Prizes, where The Capital staff received a special citation for “their courageous response to the largest killing of journalists in U.S. history.” Not long after, she went to the Newseum in Washington, D.C., as McNamara’s name was added to the memorial for journalists slain on the job. She also established a scholarship at Merrill College in his honor.

Sometimes she can even find comfort in quieter moments. In January, she spoke aloud to McNamara, as she often does, saying she wished she had been there as he was dying to tell him she loved him. She heard him reply that, in fact, she was.

“He doesn’t usually answer me,” Chamblee says.

“But that was a nice one.” TERP

P H O T O B Y B R I A N W I T T E /A P P H O T O

COLLEGE SHARED ANNAPOLIS N E W S R O O M W I T H C A P I TA L S TA F F THE RALLYING CRY for the staff of The Capital immediately following

last year’s mass shooting was: “We are putting out a damn paper tomorrow.” For the next 11 months, the Annapolis bureau of the University of Maryland’s Capital News Service helped ensure a paper went out every day after that.

“You can work from a garage, you can work from home, but at some point you need a place,” says Lucy Dalglish, dean of the Philip Merrill College of Journalism.

In the aftermath of the shooting, Dalglish reached out to Trif Alatzas, editor and publisher of the Baltimore Sun Media Group, and offered the CNS space as a respite for the reeling staff. Located on Maryland Avenue

just steps from the State House, the bureau provided a refuge as The Capital continued covering the community alongside Merrill College faculty and students. The newspaper staff moved to a new office in June.

“It was an honor to feel like we were able to do something to help,” Dalglish says.—LF

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A COLD, HARD ACT USING SENSORS IN THE ARCTIC, A PROFESSOR HOPED TO VISUALLY DEPICT THE ICE MELTING FOR AN AUDIENCE A CONTINENT AWAY—UNTIL CLIMATE CHANGE ITSELF DISRUPTED HIS PLAN.

BY S A L A L E V I N ‘ 1 0

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T E R P. U M D . E D U

P H OTO CO U RT ESY O F CY K E E N E R

I L L U S T R AT I O N / P H O T O C R E D I T

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CY KEENER STEPPED OUT

onto the nearly monochromatic, frozen landscape surrounding the northernmost city in the U.S. The scene outside at Utqiagvik, Alaska (formerly known as Barrow) was breathtaking this April morning: Giant, fractured blocks of sea ice loomed over the assistant professor of art, and the stillness was at odds with the ocean that churned silently and invisibly beneath the surface.

Keener was at once awed and melancholic. He knew that this vast expanse of ice at the top of the world—the oldest sections of which have shrunk by 95% since 1980—could vanish within a few decades.

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P O RT RA I T BY ST E P H A N I E S. CO R D L E ; D E TA I L P H O T O C O U R T E SY O F C Y K E E N E R

1 4 1

Keener started with

two sensors placed via drill into the ice, but one was destroyed within days by a polar bear. “That’s

2

fairly normal for the area,� says Keener.

The second went out to sea in June when the ice in which it was embedded broke off and melted.

2

A micro-controller

within the sensor monitored data on air temperature and ice thickness and sent it

2

to Keener.

3

A 1-meter-long

drill bit attached to a battery-powered drill pierced the ice to allow for placement of the sensor.

4

The trip included

researchers from Old Dominion University

3

P H OTOS CO U RT ESY O F CY K E E N E R

and the University of Washington.

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Some 3,400 miles away, in a street-facing window of the Rockville, Md., VisArts center, Keener planned to visually document this ice from May to September as it slowly thinned.

Using sensors buried two meters into the ice, Keener and his collaborator, Justine Holzman of the University of Toronto, intended to track its thickness daily, transforming that information into “Sea Ice 71.348778º N,

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156.690918º W,” an art installation in which hanging strips of 6-foot-long, blue-green polyester film would reflect the depth of the ice. Over the warm months, the lengths of the ever-growing number of strips—Keener added new ones every four days—would dramatically shorten.

But then, two snags: First, a polar bear destroyed one of the two sensors. (Standard

job hazard.) Then, the piece of ice containing the second sensor detached from land and floated out to sea in mid-June. The ice further broke up, and the buoy traveled into open water. Keener could no longer receive data about ice thickness—unprecedented warming had already melted the ice he was depending on.

“Of course, I was disappointed, but I

P H OTO BY ST E P H A N I E S. CO R D L E

“I liked the idea of the street being the audience, as opposed to whoever wandered into [a] gallery.

It’s a 3-D billboard for melting Arctic ice.”

—CY KEENER

also think it’s indicative of what’s going on in the sense that in past years that ice might not have broken off ” until much later, says Keener.

Instead of hanging strips, Keener made a series of six 30-by-70-inch maps of Arctic sea ice extent for 2019 to compare with sea ice extent in 2007.

Trained as both an artist and architect,

Keener has long been interested in how technology, art and the environment intersect.

He’s used sensors to track the movement of stones along a riverbed during flooding and buoys to monitor ocean currents. While working on a glacier project, Keener met a researcher from the National Ice Center, who linked Keener with a National Science Foundation-funded Arctic expedition.

“One of the struggles of art that tries to engage in issues like climate is that it gets cloistered away in a gallery setting … where not that many people go,” says Keener. “I liked the idea of the street being the audience, as opposed to whoever wandered into [a] gallery. It’s a 3-D billboard for melting Arctic ice.” terp

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ALUMNI

A S S O C I AT I O N

Letter From the Executive Director

BY THE TIME YOU READ THIS, the

newest crop of Terps will just be settling into life in College Park. They’ll be making friends, getting lost on

30th Anniversary Homecoming Tailgate Party NOV. 2 Samuel Riggs IV Alumni Center

the way to class—or worse, inside the Bio/Psych building—

CELEBRATE OUR MILESTONE at our 13th annual Homecoming

joining clubs and discovering just how amazing the dining

Tailgate presented by Buffalo Wild Wings and The Hotel at the

hall chicken tenders really are.

University of Maryland. Enjoy craft beer and wine, food from

It’s an important time for us here at the Alumni Asso-

Hardy’s BBQ Food Truck, games and a performance by the Mighty

ciation, too, as the journey with our new future alumni

Sound of Maryland. We’ve planned lots of kid activities, so be sure

begins now. For the second year, new students received a

to bring the whole family! Find more details at alumni.umd.edu.

copy of the revamped M Book (alumni.umd.edu/Mbook), which we produce to highlight Maryland traditions and offer keen insight and advice.

We also have exciting new additions to our association family. I’d like to extend a big welcome to our new president of the Board of Governors, Jim Spencer ’90, and eight new at-large members: Carlos Acosta ’85 Judge, Maryland District Court Marguerita “Rita” Cheng ’93 CEO, Blue Ocean Global Wealth Laurie De Armond ’94 Partner, BDO USA Jason Feinstein ‘91 Owner/Director, Axon Health Associates Ajay Gupta ’98 CEO, Health Solutions Research

Nefretiti Nassar ’10, M.S. ’12 Senior Systems Engineer, Booz Allen Hamilton Ted Offit ’77 Chairman/CEO; Offit Kurman, Attorneys at Law Bert Williams ’96 Executive Protection Program Manager, Fannie Mae

Finally, thank you for continuing to take part in our

2018 Homecoming by the Numbers

1,250 attendees

1,200

beer steins given out

300

gifts for Alumni Association members

8 5

Terp-owned businesses

games for the family

500

drink tickets for Alumni Association members

1,036 newly engraved names on the Frann G. & Eric S. Francis Lifetime Member Wall

30th anniversary celebration. There’s so much more to come! We hope to see you at our Homecoming 30th anniversary tailgate or one of our many other celebrations throughout the rest of 2019. Find out more by visiting alumni.umd.edu/30YearsFearless.

Amy Eichhorst

Executive Director University of Maryland Alumni Association

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I L L U S T R AT I O N BY S H U T T E R S T O C K

Then

Then and Now With New Board President Jim Spencer as a student, jim spencer ’90 helped start the Maryland Lacrosse Club, and proudly remembers organizing 150 students to play on four fields lined up on Fraternity Row. Now, as the new president of the Alumni Association Board of Governors, he’s looking to goals of a different sort. During his two-year term, Spencer hopes to establish a strong connection with the next university president, expand opportunities for alumni to engage with Maryland and each other, and to increase membership.

The longtime investment banker, now executive vice president and chief financial officer with HealthPRO Heritage, would also be thrilled to see his three high schoolers become Terps, just like him and his own parents.

Since Spencer was a UMD student back in 1989, we asked him to join in our 30th anniversary fun by digging up his favorite memories from then and now.

FAVORITE SPOT ON CAMPUS The Vous

GOLDEN TERPS REUNION Members of the Class of 1969 returned to campus on May 24 at the Riggs Alumni Center to celebrate commencement and receive their 50th anniversary medallions.

W I L L I A M S P H O T O C O U R T E S Y O F U N I V E R S I T Y A R C H I V E S ; X F I N I T Y P H O T O B Y J O H N T. C O N S O L I ; L E F T A N D R I G H T P H OTOS BY L I SA H E L F E RT ‘ 92 ; C E N T E R P H OTO BY C H I A C H I “ C H A R L I E ” C H A N G

Xfinity Center

BEST TV SHOW Reruns of “The Wire”

“Cheers”

FAVORITE ARTICLE OF CLOTHING Sigma Chi sweatshirt

A golf shirt

BEST BITE TO EAT IN COLLEGE PARK Friday’s in Greenbelt, which I thought was a big Friday night out

The Hotel

FAVORITE MUSIC Jason Aldean

R.E.M.

FAVORITE PASTIME Lacrosse

Golf

BEST TERP SPORTS MEMORY Watching Greivis Vasquez and the men’s basketball team beat UNC with my son

Arrival of Gary Williams

BEDTIME 12:30 am

TERPS UNDER 30 Over 100 Terps gathered on April 3 at the Riggs Alumni Center for a professional TED-talk style program providing students and recent graduates the opportunity to connect, network and share their fearless ideas.

Now

10:30 pm

TERPS ON THE HILL Theodore Caruthers ‘18 (left), Martin Sanders ‘19 and Todd McGarvey ‘16 mingled with Capitol Hill Terps and heard exciting updates from university leadership and members of the Maryland delegation on June 19.

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ALUMNI

PROFILES

AARON MCGRUDER ‘98

Deep in “The Boondocks”

Twenty Years Later, Alum’s Comic Creation Hits Just as Hard lack culture, satirical comedy and a heaping helping of no-holds-barred societal commentary. No cartoon franchise has ever combined these elements like “The Boondocks,” a comic strip and later a TV series created by Aaron McGruder ’98.

It spread its caustic humor in the pages of The Diamondback before becoming a nationally syndicated comic from 1999 to 2006. The Cartoon Network run lasted from 2005 to 2014, and Sony Pictures Animation in June announced plans to reboot the series next year with McGruder.

“It was important to offend, but equally important to offend for the right reasons,” he wrote in a statement on his initial departure from the series.

“For three seasons I personally navigated this show through the minefields of controversy. It was not perfect. And it definitely was not quick. But it was always done with a keen sense of duty, history, culture and love.”

Earlier this year, McGruder sent fans into swoons by publishing six new strips on the Instagram account of radio host Charlamagne Tha God. The strips were as biting and relevant as ever, swiping at Michael Jackson, MSNBC and the probe into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Twenty years after “The Boondocks” introduced America to the struggles of 10-year-old revolutionary-minded Huey Freeman and 8-year-old gangsta-wannabe brother Riley in acclimating from the South Side of Chicago to fictional affluent suburb Woodcrest, Md., Terp looks back at some of its signature storylines and episodes.—do

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The “Boondocks” debuted in The Diamondback on Dec. 3, 1996, with a strip introducing the Freeman family.

CLASS NOTES EPISODES

“It was important to offend, but equally important to offend for the right reasons.”

—AARON MCGRUDER ’98

STRIPS

ISABELLA WANG ’19 , a

NOVEMBER 2005

public health analyst

In the series’ second episode, McGruder tees off on R&B singer R. Kelly, questioning the avid support of some in the African-American community despite accusations of child pornography and sexual abuse of minors.

KEMI FAKNULE ’15 ,

in Los Angeles, and a marketing strategist in New York City, were contestants on CBS’ double-crossing, house-sharing reality show “Big Brother” this summer.

U.S. Rep. ERIC SWALWELL ’03 (D-Calif.) is running for re-election to a fifth House term after ending his campaign for the Democratic

JANUARY 2006

nomination for president, which

OCTOBER 2001 In the emotional weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, McGruder stirs controversy with strips that charge U.S. administrations with arming the terrorists, and Huey calls for the arrest of President George W. Bush.

focused on his support for gun reform and

In an alternative history episode, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. survives his assassination attempt, awaking from a coma decades later only to be disappointed by the state of African-American culture and the nation’s progress toward civil rights.

election security.

STEVE BLAKE , a member of the

Terps’ 2002 NCAA championship team, joined the Phoenix Suns as an assistant coach. The 13-year NBA veteran spent the past two

years working with the Portland Trail Blazers.

ALPHONSO DAVID ’92 is the new

JANUARY 2008

president of the Human Rights

JULY 2003 Characters celebrate the death of segregationist U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond, with Huey reflecting, “You can really, really, really, really, really hate black people … and it’s basically OK with everyone.”

Campaign, the first person of

McGruder again confronts clashing African-American perspectives among different generations and socioeconomic groups with a plot based on a white teacher calling Riley the n-word. Who in society controls the use of the explosive term, Huey wonders?

color to lead the nation’s largest LGBTQ rights organization. He

had served as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s chief counsel since 2015, and as a lawyer with the state.

SARA IVERSON PH.D. ’88 , a

marine biology professor at Dalhousie University, was

OCTOBER 2003 The Washington Post and other newspapers decline to run a series of strips about finding a boyfriend for Condoleezza Rice, then Bush’s national security adviser.

selected by Mattel and National

MAY 2010

Geographic as an influential Canadian scientist and role model for

Amid a celebration in Woodcrest over President Barack Obama’s winning the presidency, Huey—doubtful that an elected official can fix society—is indifferent to the historic occasion.

“ T H E B O O N D O C KS” C H A RACT E R CO U RT ESY S O N Y P I CT U R ES T E L EV I S I O N ; “ T H E BOONDOCKS” STRIP REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION FROM THE DIAMONDBACK; C L A S S N O T E S I L L U S T R AT I O N S BY J A S O N K E I S L I N G

Barbie’s You Can Be Anything campaign as part of the doll’s 60th anniversary.

Submit your class notes and read many more at terp.umd.edu.

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Go retro ’80s and celebrate the 30th anniversary of the University of Maryland Alumni Association by becoming a member today.

JOIN THE PARTY AT alumni.umd.edu/30yearsfearless

P H OTO BY K E V I N DY E L S

Get a gnarly perm.

Sport some totally tubular crew socks. wear glasses that consume your entire face.

ALUMNI

CHARLIE HART ‘62

Wind in Their Sails Alum Uses Sailing to Connect Children to Environment

P H OTOS CO U RT ESY O F CA L L O F T H E S E A

harlie hart ’62 believes the past provides a good guide for inspiring future sailors and caretakers of the natural world, even if the specific blueprint is 200 years old.

A board member and former CEO of Call of the Sea, a nonprofit marine education organization based in Sausalito, Calif., Hart was part of the team that this September was scheduled to launch its new signature project, a 132-footlong recreated tall ship.

Modeled after a 19th-century example called Galilee, the brigantine Matthew Turner—

C

PROFILES

named after the original’s builder—will serve as a floating classroom sailing the West Coast and South Pacific.

“The kids are going to love it because it looks like a pirate ship,” Hart says. “Everyone likes a pirate ship.”

The Matthew Turner is just one part of Hart’s footprint on California marine education.

As CEO of the San Francisco Maritime National Park Association, he leads an organization that educates more than 12,000 children a year through everything from sailing and vernacular to an overnight program at the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park that mimics life on the sea in 1906.

Many participants are from low-income schools, Hart says, and only about 5% have ever been on a boat. Just pausing for 15 minutes to listen to the whistle of the wind and the lapping of waves can be transformative.

“Little things like that … make an impression,” he says.

Hart, who learned to sail on the Chesapeake Bay, was a U.S. Air Force officer and had a long career in Silicon Valley. He was chairman, president and CEO of MediaAlive and CEO of Micronics Computers and was named to the Micro Times 50, a list of the most influential people in the computer industry.

Nonprofit leadership was the next chapter.

Before spending eight years leading Call of the Sea, Hart was chairman of the board of the San Jose Symphony, CEO of the Ballet San Jose and president of the HealthStore Foundation, operating health clinics in Africa.

An experienced sailor, he believes boating education and experience on the water are having a positive impact in his community, and sees an improvement in water quality and marine life since he settled in the Bay Area in the 1970s.

“The end goal is to create better stewards for the environment,” Hart says. “The water is different. It’s paying off.”—lf

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ALUMNI

PROFILES

DANI BECKERMAN ‘12

A Jarring Success

Alum Builds Business on Layered Desserts ani beckerman ’12 was planning to become a doctor. Instead, she found a clear path to a booming business in a mini Mason jar.

While juggling a medical internship with pastry classes, the lifelong hobby baker saw a display of glass containers at a crafts store and instantly knew that layering her desserts in them would make for a killer visual. Brownie chunks, mousse and whipped cream went in, Beckerman snapped a photo, and her Instagram crowd went wild. Soon, her followers wanted their own adorable desserts.

Social media savvy has been a main ingredient in the success of what became Jars by Dani, which six years later has 16 employees, a new manufacturing facility in Queens and a partnership with national gelato and sorbet brand Talenti.

“I always loved baking,” says Beckerman, who studied psychology and pre-med at Maryland. “I never really thought I’d do it as a career, but there was something pulling me toward it. … I just said, ‘I’ll see what comes of this’—Jars

by Dani came of it.”

At first, Jars by Dani comprised Beckerman in the kitchen of her fifth-floor Upper West Side walkup, frantically baking and assembling jars all night. She’d trek through New York City on

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the subway, hand-delivering her products to customers and asking them to help spread the word by posting their own Instagram photos of the jars.

“You can’t be shy about it—you have to promote your business,” Beckerman says.

Her confections became staples on the New York party scene, making appearances at soirees for Diane von Furstenberg, Coach, Ralph Lauren and other brands. Soon, Beckerman was taking in culinary school students for externships to meet the demand for her picture-perfect creations.

Flavors like strawberry shortcake, cake batter and peanut butter ensure that the jars are more than just bait for Instagram “likes,” says Beckerman. “You buy them first for the aesthetics, and then the taste keeps you coming back,” she says. “People are always surprised by how good they taste.”

The Talenti-partnered jars take another tasty turn, with concoctions like Brownie Mint Madness and Choco-Cookie Craze. People magazine described them as “the ultimate sundae in a jar.”

Available for order nationwide at $10 for a large and $6.25 for a small, the sweet jars do pose one problem for Beckerman: picking a favorite.

“It’s like choosing between children,” she’s said. — sl

P H OTOS CO U RT ESY O F DA N I B EC K E R M A N

ALUMNI

FROM THE ARCHIVES

Three Cheers for an Embattled Testudo Alum’s Photo Collection Captures Student Life—and Statue’s Shenanigans FOR A BRONZE STATUE, Testudo traveled a

remarkable number of times—and took a measure of abuse—in his younger days.

The Diamondback reported that the 400-pound terrapin, installed outside Ritchie Coliseum in 1933, was kidnapped 12 times in its first 15 years. Typically, prankster students from rival schools just rolled up the circular driveway, plucked the statue from its perch, and zipped back onto Baltimore Avenue for their getaway.

This image from a collection donated by former student Dick Byer, a photographer for The Diamondback and Terrapin yearbook, shows the statue’s troubles continued into the 1960s, even after it was transferred to outside Byrd Stadium and filled with cement.

Look closely at his 1964 portrait of new varsity cheerleaders Jeanne Lamond, Betsy Park and Dottie Wells, and you’ll see faded markings scrawled across the statue’s base. In 1962, University of Virginia students sprayed “28–16” there to remind the Terps who’d won their matchup at the end of the previous season.

The writing lingered long enough for Byer’s photo, but Testudo didn’t stick around much later. In 1965, he was moved to the more central location in front of McKeldin Library, where he’s stood ever since.—AD

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See more of Byer’s collection—including photos of Billy Jones, the first African-American basketball player in the ACC, and a half-century-old aerial view of campus—at terp.umd.edu.

P H OTO BY D I C K BY E R/CO U RT ESY O F UNIVERSITY ARCHIVES

C R EATE YO U R

LEGACY. FUTURE.

E N SUR E TH E IR

Include the University of Maryland in your estate planning and support Terps for generations to come.

We can help you arrange a charitable gift that meets your financial and philanthropic goals. Whether your passion is scholarships or bold innovation, you have the power to change lives forever at the University of Maryland.

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OCT. 30 SEE PRESENTS:

HOMECOMING COMEDY SHOW ft. JOHN MULANEY

COME BACK FOR A WEEK OF FUN AND FABULOUS EVENTS CELEBRATING MARYLAND PRIDE, ALL REVVING UP FOR THE FOOTBALL SHOWDOWN BETWEEN THE TERPS AND MICHIGAN WOLVERINES.

OCT. 27–NOV. 3 SEE HOW MUCH THE CAMPUS HAS GROWN. TAILGATE LIKE IT’S YOUR JOB. LAUGH ’TIL YOUR SIDES HURT AT THE COMEDY SHOW. GO PLAY AT THE TERP CARNIVAL. PACK THE STADIUM AND REPRESENT THE RED, BLACK AND GOLD. CHEER YOURSELF HOARSE: M-A-R-Y-L-A-N-D!

GET YOUR GAME AND JOHN MULANEY TICKETS AND FIND THE FULL LINEUP AT HOMECOMING.UMD.EDU.